What Are You Waiting For?

Sermon

There are many Gregg Neel-isms, little phrases he likes to throw out every now and then, and one of the ones that drives me crazy is this: Don’t just do something, sit there!

It makes me nutty when he says that because I am a do-er; I like to do things, accomplish things, fill up my free time; I like to never have a dull moment. In some ways, that reminds me of the disciples in today’s story from Acts.

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, of course, is one big story, but rather than being stories about all twelve of the apostles, it’s really about the acts of the Holy Spirit in getting things off the ground. And the first thing that gets off the ground is Jesus, literally, as he ascends to heaven.

It’s odd—I have no problem believing in the resurrection of Jesus but I sure have trouble believing in this story of the Ascension. Maybe it’s because I’m such a visual person, and I’ve seen too many bad depictions of this scene. Or maybe it’s because I don’t understand why it’s necessary to tell this particular story.

Except that it is a necessary part of the big story because Jesus needs to keep reminding the disciples what he is about, and in order to do that, he has to leave. Let’s take a step back.

Just prior to today’s lesson, the risen Jesus has been hanging out with the disciples in Jerusalem for forty days, and he tells them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the next big thing that God is going to do.

And the disciples, having been raised in the Jewish tradition, having acknowledged Jesus as the messiah, think that Jesus is going to do the expected thing that messiahs do—save the people of Israel by restoring the kingdom of Israel. In other words, they want Jesus to build an empire that can take on Caesar, that will ensure peace and prosperity for their people, that will give them the economic and military and political strength needed to defend themselves from other powers. That’s what they think they’re waiting for.

But Jesus is quick to say no. “Sorry to bum your mellow, guys, but it’s really none of your beeswax what God and I are up to for the coming eons. Here’s what you do need to know:

You will receive the Holy Spirit of God.
You will bear witness to my good news here in Jerusalem to our people.
You will bear witness to my good news in Judea to our people, and in Samaria to the Gentiles, and to the ends of the earth.
But first, you will wait.”

Don’t just do something, sit there!

Waiting is not a favorite pastime for most of us, yet throughout the scriptures, we learn of God’s people waiting all the time. To be fair, in the days when scripture was written, people told time by where the sun was in the sky, and to go from here to there they usually walked. They didn’t have to worry about deadlines or traffic or any of those inconveniences that force us into an unplanned and unwanted waiting period.

Of waiting, Methodist Bishop William Willimon writes, “Waiting, an onerous burden for us computerized and technically impatient moderns who live in an age of instant everything, is one of the tough tasks of the church. Our waiting implies that the things which need doing are beyond our ability to accomplish solely by our own effort, our programs and crusades. Some other empowerment is needed, therefore, as the church waits and prays.” (Acts¸Interpretation series, p. 21)

What are you waiting for? Maybe for the sermon to end! Or for someone to arrive or someone to leave. Or for graduation. Or for a birth, or a death. Maybe you’re waiting to go on a trip, or to pay off a loan, or for your treatment to start or finish. Maybe you’re waiting for a test result. As human beings, we always find ourselves waiting for something.

But communities wait, too. So let’s enlarge the question: what are we waiting for? What are we, the church, waiting for? There are congregations that are waiting for their numbers—attendance and giving—to go back up to their pre-pandemic levels. There are congregations waiting for their Sunday School rooms to be full again, like they were in the ’50s. I know many in our congregation are waiting for an accessible restroom to be built somewhere that is actually close to the sanctuary.

But are those the sorts of things the church, the Body of Christ, really needs to be waiting for? An accessible bathroom, maybe, but the good old days of an overflowing church, probably not. Some of us in the church waited a long time for our Presbyterian church to ordain women and to ordain LGBTQ people to the offices of elder, deacon, and Minister of Word and Sacrament. Some waited a long time for churches to be racially integrated (and are still waiting).

But what are we waiting for nowadays? And what do we do while we wait?

One way to answer that first question is to ask it a different way. What do we think is breaking Jesus’ heart right now? We would not have to go far from this sanctuary to see people who are in desperate need of love, shelter, and treatment. The confluence of too-expensive housing at all levels and not enough affordable housing, of undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, and easily obtained and very addictive and dangerous drugs has led to what I would consider a moral crisis of unhoused people. Surely seeing someone wearing a blanket and weaving in and out of traffic breaks Jesus’ heart.

The continued murder of people of all ages going about their lives in schools, sacred buildings, and shopping malls by gun violence is horrifying for all of us. As horrified and numb as we are to these incidents, Jesus has seen centuries of humans killing humans. Of course this latest round breaks his heart.

Climate change is real, and all the world, and especially the youth of the world, face a future that we of older generations did not have to face. Some places will wash away in the rising ocean tides. Some rivers and reservoirs will dry up, with no substitute. Hurricanes and blizzards and cold fronts and heat domes will intensify. The human greed and selfishness that has led to climate change surely breaks Jesus’ heart.

We, as people who follow in the way of Jesus, wait for the vulnerable to receive healing and wholeness. We wait for an end to violence. We wait for nations to do what they must before climate change becomes irreversible.

And the hard truth is that we might wait our lifetime for these things.

But.

Jesus told the disciples that after he ascended, they would need to wait and pray until the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Granted, they did not have as long a time to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled, but still—they too waited. But what does that mean? What do we do while we wait?

It’s been said that “waiting is an essential part of our spiritual journey; it’s an expression of faith in a mysterious world where things do not always go our way or fit our timetables.” And as Will Willimon said, waiting reminds us that not everything is up to us. (https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/19505/the-meaning-is-in-the-waiting; Brussart)

Maybe one of the reasons that waiting is so hard for us is because it reminds us we are not in control. I hate that. But it’s a bit of a dance, isn’t it? Knowing we cannot end violence or poverty or addiction or climate change without the help of God, and yet not simply waiting for God to do the big thing for us.

This might help. The next-to-last last words of the Bible are “Come, Lord Jesus!” Christendom has been waiting a good two thousand-plus years for Jesus to come back. Some think that will be soon. I don’t. We have been waiting for him a long time, but we have not waited until he’s back before engaging in the work and ministry and life he has called us to.

Jimmy Carter once said, “We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.” We wait, knowing that by ourselves we cannot accomplish what God can. But in the meantime, we do the stuff Christ did because while he is away, he has given us the Holy Spirit to empower us.

So, we volunteer at NEFP so that people whose SNAP benefits were cut can feed their families. We support Chris and others in their work of establishing Barbie’s Village so that Native people in our community have a place where they can live in community and support each other. We go to Salem and advocate for more just laws. We circulate petitions to get a gun-safety measure on the ballot, and we rejoice when the measure passes, and we keep fighting when the measure gets held up in court. We learn that we don’t have control over everything, but there are ways we can influence for the good and make change.

I wonder if there’s something else Westminster can do while we wait for Jesus, while we wait for God to do the Big Thing. Sometimes I dream of Westminster having a full-time social worker on staff—someone who knows the resources we can offer not only to people who come to the church for help but also to our own members who need to find assisted living places or rent help. This person would not only work directly with individuals but could also equip the staff and members in knowing what to do in certain situations, when to say yes and when to say no and when to say I don’t know. It’s a thought. A dream, maybe. After we get that accessible restroom. A way to pass the time while waiting.

What are we waiting for? I love exploring that question with you.

Let me leave you with Mary Oliver’s thoughts on waiting, from her poem Such Silence. 

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.
No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.